Haiku earrings

[davidgoldfarb]

I was at Potlatch this last weekend. I helped do the Philip K. Dick reading/play, which was a lot of fun. (The Book of Honor was _A Scanner Darkly_, hence the PKD theme.)

The concom got Elise Matthesen to come out and sell her jewelry. On Sunday
she did haiku earrings. This is the process:

Elise lays out a bunch of small earrings on her table.
You pick out one or a pair and bring it to her.
She gives you a title.
You write the haiku that has that as the title.
You put the haiku where the earrings were.
Now you own the earrings.
Optionally you grant her the right to reproduce your haiku in a chapbook and/or a card to be strung on a necklace.

My earrings had two beads: the upper was an oval with pointed ends, a shiny yellow, with a picture of an oval-shaped leaf, strung through one end;the lower a clear blue faceted ball.

I took them to Elise. She asked me, "Silly or serious?" (I found out later that she had asked someone else, "Ancient or modern?".) I chose serious, and received 'The Price of Immortality'.

The Price of Immortality

Yellow leaves in blue
Water are carried away
And never touch me.

I read this to Elise. She smiled. "Yes," she said. "That's the haiku that goes in that place."

Comments

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I still really, really like that haiku, too.